Total Sensory: The Next Frontier of Digital Marketing

As a digital strategist who has spent a substantial amount of time in the experiential/event marketing world, one of the opportunities that intrigue me most is how to drive consumers from physical environments to digital platforms to create seamless experiences. A great example of this offline-to-online transition is Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s limited-edition #WHHSH beer activation at Coachella, encouraging concert goers to interact with the #WHHSH hashtag on social media. Our tools for this type of activation have typically included URLs and the dreaded QR code. As digital sensors better mimic our physical senses, we move closer to a seamless physical-to-digital experience.

Recently, I have seen national use of a technology that I’m stoked about for this purpose: sound recognition. More specifically, Shazam. The first was Coke Zero’s promotion with ESPN GameDay in which you could use Shazam to get a free Coke Zero after tagging the commercial. The second execution, a recent Target commercial, suggested one tag it with Shazam to “begin shopping.” However, this wasn’t the first Target ad to use the app, and several other brands have used the technology including Starbucks, Jaguar and Honda.

The benefits of sound recognition to drive online awareness include:

  • The sound in brand ads is inherently unique.
  • The user is not required to type in a URL.
  • Reinforces “sound branding,” like the sound of pouring a Coca-Cola or a revving Harley-Davidson engine.
  • Tag management in Shazam allows the user to visit the experience at their convenience.

While there are some criticisms of the market’s continued interest in Shazam and the user experience, for example, attempting to tag a TV commercial in 30 seconds, I believe that brands should continue to explore the use of sound recognition as a driver to online properties. As brands explore these opportunities, here are some uses that come to mind:

  • Distributing promotional codes/offer to an event audience (i.e., giving out a free song track at a concert)
  • Driving tablet second-screen TV viewers to product websites
  • Hiding audio “Easter eggs” within media content (e.g., movies, TV shows, branded video content)

Shazam has also recently added visual recognition to their functionality. If a user sees the app’s camera logo, he or she can unlock a deeper experience by pointing the camera at the image and tapping the Shazam app button. Now a brand’s ad itself or logo becomes the QR code.

As visual and sound recognition are being perfected and driving a more interactive world, what is the next step? The sense of touch is already being prototyped and is in experimentation mode. A TED Talk, “Shape-shifting tech will change work as we know it,” shows how we’re starting to interact with the digital world in physical space. These advances, coupled with other advances, like augmented reality and iBeaons, are bringing us one step closer to a total sensory digital experience. As a digital geek, I am all-in for the next frontier of digital marketing, further leveraging our five senses—perhaps taste will be next!

Denver Startup Week: Pitch & Presentation Tips

After getting a glimpse into the impressive world of Techstars at their Demo Day on September 9, we were intrigued to hear what their feedback would be when eleven CEOs at Denver Startup Week pitched to them. Denver Startup Week is the largest free entrepreneurial event of its kind in North America, meant to showcase downtown Denver’s thriving culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. The fourth annual Denver Startup Week had over 10,000 attendees across 235 programs aimed at helping people succeed in starting and growing a business in Denver. 

Denverblog

The R&R Partners team was lucky enough to register early and get there early for good seats to watch two week old businesses to well-established startups present in front of Techstars, an accelerator program notorious for producing successful startups. The eleven performances were honed through vigorous, candid, and extremely valuable “pitch practice.” The insightful feedback provided is recapped below and can be applied to any industry, any position, and for any public speaking event. 

  • Have a strong intro that captures everyone’s attention and curiosity
  • Simplify what you’re saying but don’t use vague words
  • Simplify technical language or give real life/relatable examples if your audience isn’t on the same technical level
  • Make sure to state your key differentiator(s) in 2-3 sentences
  • Research the audience in advance to help predict the questions they might have so you can answer along the way
  • Even if you’re a comfortable presenter, practice it 25x
  • Story telling helps people who are not close to the product/industry relate to or understand in easier terms
  • Make sure the story line has structure and isn’t jumping around; don’t go off on a tangent
  • Speak to the whole room vs. the few decision makers
  • Notes – don’t make a scene trying to find where you should be in your notes or swiping/flipping through and don’t read directly from notes
  • Don’t keep the most important facts/statements until the end incase key people need to leave early or you meet your time limit
  • Have “crisp” answers to questions that show you know your industry and understood the question vs. over explaining

Assistant Media Planner/Buyer Katie Fischer co-authored this article. 

3 trends from Digital Summit 2015

Hashtags, culture and trends, oh my! The world today is a fast-paced, ever changing marketplace that we continuously strive to understand. R&R Denver attended Digital Summit 2015, and left with these three integral industry trends:

1. “Unperfection”
Long gone are the days of perfect people ruling the planet. Our culture is obsessed with documentation (because if it’s not on social media, it didn’t happen, right?), and we have come to accept that not every “in-the-moment” moment is picture perfect. We find failures and flaws to be funny, and encourage behaviors that showcase humanity. Campaigns like #nofilter and the Don’t Judge Challenge succeed because the general public now values hilarity and honesty over posed and processed media. What does this mean for brands? Wrong theory (an intentional asymmetry) can finally be utilized to our gain and, finally, mistakes will be embraced … as long as you catch them on Snapchat and they go viral and they are actually completely hilarious.

DEN1

2. Everyday Stardom
Consistent with our obsession to share, we also believe that we are the stars of not only our own story, but everyone else’s too. We Snapchat our road rage and Instagram our protein shakes because we think that everything we do is worthy of being shared. The growth of personalization and everyone’s secret desire to become “instafamous” means that brands need to find new ways to make everyone feel like a celebrity. The takeaway? Offer your clients a VIP experience based in reality to ensure that they know they are a celebrity − at least to you.

DEN2

3. Branded Benevolence
Being a globally conscious brand is SO IN RIGHT NOW. Research shows that young people take a big issue with brands who only value their bottom line. Even more, young talent actively searches for charitable actions in future employers. Our challenge? Find tangible ways to give back that align with our brands’ values. Even better, make these efforts visible, fun and contagious. Now let’s go change the world!
With these insights, we feel armed and ready to reach people in thoughtful and innovative ways. We now understand that 1) unperfection is not only acceptable, but embraced, 2) everyone wants to be treated like a star, and 3) the heart and soul of what we do is now more important than ever. Armed with these insights, we’re ready to connect, understand and conquer!

The Return of the King

Content is King. But it hasn’t seemed that way. As we crossed into “Web 2.0,” every user with an opinion was King. Not long after, we entered into the “Age of Apps,” which created a true give-and-take between brands and consumers. Simultaneously, consumers started having conversations with the universal megaphone of social media. These empowered consumers started talking about our brands more loudly than our brands were talking about themselves. So we joined in, bringing every brand that might have something to say to the social media party, jumping into conversations, hoping not to get kicked out for rudely interrupting. But the rest of the world figured out that we were only waiting for someone to ask us “what do you think?” so we can reply with “we think you should buy Brand X!” So now what do we do? We return to the universal truth …

You have to give before you get.

Content marketing is generous King. But it’s rarely been the first thought of any brand; “How much can we give away for free?” We know the Groupon Effect causes a temporary bump in sales without a gain in long-term clientele. Giving temporary deep discounts is really only an effective short-term strategy. Giving away product in a sweepstakes is GREAT for lead generation, but who’s going to buy if there’s a chance they’re going to win? So that is how we’ve returned the marketing crown to its rightful owner, content. But remember …

The value of content is that it informs, entertains, or reflects an identity. But it does not sell.

Content marketing is not direct response. It’s not instant gratification; it’s the long game. Content does not inspire conversion it inspires conversation. Good content inspires consumers to talk to the brand, about the brand, and even for the brand. Better gets a Like, Favorite, stars and hearts. The best gets the envious Share, Tweet, Post, Repost, Retweet, Wundertweetpostbump, etc., until the amplification turns your initial $1.25 per engagement of paid media spend into an $.04 eCPE (effective Click Per Engagement). These numbers happened for our Las Vegas Kiss Cam animated gif on Tumblr.

tumblr_nlbqe1D31l1u4ta7do2_400

We entertained. And for a brief moment in time, some users out there laughed enough to share us with their friends. All over the world, even in China where our client didn’t spend a dime, Las Vegas brought a smile to people’s faces.

That’s the real way to a consumer’s heart. Give without asking, entertain without selling. Because our only focus was on the giggle chamber (the left ventricle, technically) of the consumer’s heart, our content succeeded. We weren’t kicked out of the social media party; we were passed around like a [insert inappropriate party drug reference].

Campaigns succeed by converting. Content succeeds by being engaging.

Of course, sales matter. You don’t win Effies by not moving the needle. But we can’t push our sales messages into conversations anymore. There are tons of bad blogs out there, brands telling only their own story, tricking people into swallowing a soft yummy shell of content around a hard-selling nutty center. We can’t do that to our consumers anymore; they’ll choke. Then they’ll sue for negligence because they have nut allergies and we didn’t warn them first. They, at least, sure won’t take anything we give them in the future without questioning our motives.

Corporations are now people; brands are now friends. Social media made that happen long before SCOTUS.

You do not have a single person in your life with whom you do not have an emotional bank account. Every relationship is ruled by these accounts. Every brand has one with consumers too. Your next sale isn’t just about quality anymore, or value, or cost, or history, or whether your widget weighs a quarter gram less than your competitors. Your next sale is about your relationship with your consumers and your potential consumers. Do you make them laugh? Do you inspire new ideas? Do you bring them flowers “just because?” When you give good content, listen and tell their story, without asking for anything in return, that emotional bank account grows an until that consumer just loves you. Then comes the conversion.

“Business moves at the speed of ideas. And you don’t have to like it, but you can’t ignore it.” – Gottfrid, Happyish (Showtime)

Happyish is showing off agency life in a way that’s both current and OMG too real. The young bucks are brought in to usher a long-established, large agency into the digital world, and the old guard has two choices: pivot or perish. Being a user experience designer of a certain age, I find myself identifying and empathizing with both sides. OF COURSE our brands need social media accounts and strategies, but I reacted like Thom (the protagonist OG) in that I couldn’t understand why a brand like Pepto Bismol has a Twitter account or why 7,400 people would want to follow them. But then it hit me like a burrito bomb. And I have to give Pepto’s agency respect for both responding smartly to Happyish and for having the most subversive social campaign I’ve ever seen. Pepto, as you might imagine, doesn’t have a lot to say about or to the world. But it doesn’t fall into the trap of selling its product on social either. Instead, it creates observational (and occasionally funny) content. A lot of it is about pizza. A LOT. And sausage and bacon and quesadillas and all kinds of delicious food that, if you’re inspired to eat it, will make your stomach revolt. Should you indulge, you’re eventually going to need Pepto Bismol. And THAT is the long game of content marketing, the game we all had better be playing now.

Long live the King.

How have you enacted content marketing for your or your clients’ success? If you haven’t yet, what’s holding you back?

Favicons: The First Visual Statement of Your Website

Pretend I am Oprah for a second, and listen to me share one of my favorite things:

FAVICONS.

I love them so much. In fact, since I have started working as a developer the use and importance of a favicon has been the topic I have debated the most. While some people think they are just clutter, I think they showcase a brand and profressionalism.

Unfamiliar with favicons? Well let me tell you what they are.
The word is a combination of favorite and icon. They are tiny little square images that are 16 pixels by 16 pixels. They are not a JPG or a PNG, but an icon file that is saved as an .ico file. They are used as branding / bookmarking on websites. They go next to the title of the webpage if you have a tab open. Like so:

You also may have noticed them here in your bookmarks bar:

The reason I love them is because no matter the web browser, I am a heavy tab-user. I always have at least 8 tabs open with music, email, and projects I am working on. When I am jumping from one tab to another, I am usually just skimming the text because my eye is focused on the favicon.

The virtual space in my life that would most benefit from more favicons is my RSS reader. I personally love using Feedly. If you aren’t familiar with Feedly, it is an RSS feeder that keeps a running list of all your favorite websites. Rather than visiting their actual URL, you can just get their updates streamed into one place. There are several different RSS feeders out there, but the ease of Feedly makes it my favorite, hands-down. I subscribe to all of my favorite blogs and organize them by their categories: friends, traditional design, fabric, web-design, food, and religious.

Here is a little screen shot of what I see when I sign into Feedly.

Clearly, my friends folder doesn’t have a lot of personality in the favicon department. The orange favicon is the default created by Google for any blog that is made by Google Blogger (hence the “B” in the favicon).

Last month, I set out to change this. I told my friends that I would make any of them a favicon for free. It could be whatever their hearts desired. A flower, a letter, a picture of your face? You got it. I gave them a little bit of guidance because even though Martha Stewart is powerful enough to have a picture of herself as a favicon, not everyone can pull it off. I showed them some of my favorites:

Because the image is so tiny, it is good to have just a few details in the image but nothing too complicated. Here are some of my favorites:

Successful favicons are simple; they are a continuation of the brand in a small space.

  • Hulu reversed a little snippet of its familiar logo for their favicon. The green is strong against the common neutral backgrounds of a browser tab.
  • Melimba is a lifestyle fabric company and has a heart for a favicon. Although the heart is not part of the logo, it represents warmth – a feeling that the fabrics should bring as well.
  • Price Waterhouse Coopers has an intricate logo, but they successfully collapse their look into their favicon space.
  • GO Rving redid their website a couple years ago. By taking a small portion of their logo, they named the title of the page so that it purposely works with the favicon. So the title on your browser tab has an image, but still reads “GO RVing.”
  • Central Market is a grocery store in Texas. They recently updated their website and elements from the logo were combined to make this favicon.
  • And lastly, Target. They have already created an iconic look, which translates perfectly to a powerful favicon.

In my opinion, a favicon is one more simple spot to showcase your brand. It’s kind of a big deal if you don’t have one. Depending on your browser, you may get a small replacement favicon that looks like a blank document. In the last few months, Google has taken an interesting tactic with favicons. If you do a Google search and then go to a site from the results, Google will put their default favicon on that found site. If the website has created their own favicon, it will quickly replace the Google default. But if not, Google’s logo will be placed next to the title. Pretty clever there, Google…

default favicons

I am happy to report that my friends responded to my plea for a favicon recall. I have created 20 new favicons and my RSS feed couldn’t be more pleased!

default favicons

Happy favicon day to you!

If you want to see even more, here are a few sites with favicon examples: Smashing Magazine |  Sitepoint  

How to channel your reach to today’s “TV” viewer

You can still reach the people who watch popular television shows. Just don’t use television to do it.

Many people are saying that we are in another Golden Age of Television. I can’t argue. It’s difficult to remember when there has been as much good, and varied, episodic programming available at any given time.

I’m even watching. I’ve just finished the most recent seasons of two great shows and right now I’m neck deep in two others. Just finished season 4 of Showtime’s Homeland and season 3 of Netflix’s House of Cards. I’m currently in the middle of AMC’s first season of Better Call Saul and HBO’s amazing six-part documentary, The Jinx. The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.

I know. There’s nothing terribly notable about any of that. They’re all very popular shows, watched by many. But for me, the interesting thing is how I’m watching them. I saw downloads of Homeland on my laptop, mostly on airplanes. House of Cards came via Netflix and my Roku. I’m catching up with Better Call Saul using my cable company’s On Demand service after AMC has actually broadcast the episodes. And I’m seeing The Jinx on HBO GO, HBO’s anytime streaming service.

So, the final count is one via laptop, two using Roku and one from On Demand. Four series, and I haven’t watched a single episode of any of them on “traditional television” as we know it. And I’m 60 years old. Not exactly a “digital early adopter.”

Does that mean that − outside of live sports, news and special events − there’s no way for a marketer to reach someone like me using popular episodic television programming? Well, yes and no. Or maybe the answer is maybe. Traditional TV ads certainly won’t work. Netflix, Showtime and HBO don’t even offer them, and the ads on my On Demand replays of Better Call Saul get the “fast-forward” treatment every time (sorry Capital One and CarMax).

But I believe there are other routes to a television viewer’s mind. Because in today’s world of binge-watching, digital-streaming, on-demand television, many viewers don’t stop at passively watching the episodes. They like to read about them, talk about them and argue about them. Online. With the thousands of others who share their passion for the latest dastardly deeds of Francis and Claire Underwood, the infuriating loose-cannon behavior of CIA Station Chief Carrie Mathieson, or the true meaning of Rust Cole’s latest monologue (I’m wide open to any help I can get on that one).

But that’s just the beginning. Twitter is always filled with discussions after episodes of popular shows have aired. And I can’t even imagine how many subreddit threads are devoted to Game of Thrones. In fact, if all of the sites, discussion boards, threads and digital space devoted just to Game of Thrones were amalgamated in one place, it would constitute a “Westeros Internet” unto itself.

There are reviews, discussions, updates and news about television all over the Web. I know one of the first things I want to do after an episode of Better Call Saul or Homeland is go to The AV Club for the latest review and discussion of said episode. So if a marketer wants to find me and other Homeland fans, that’s where we’ll be – again and again. And that’s where you can market to us, if you do it right.

Which means not just throwing mindless banner ads or annoying pre-rolls at us. Understand why we’re there and tap into it. Use our interest in and devotion to Sons of Anarchy or Mad Men or True Detective or whatever else it is we’re there to talk about and engage us. Odds are good we’ll pay attention.

The point is, today’s popular episodic television constitutes a culturewide shared experience as much as it ever has. But instead of gathering around the water cooler to talk about last night’s installment of Twin Peaks or Hill Street Blues, we’re sitting at our keyboards or grabbing our smartphones to discuss the hilarious white linen “Matlock” suit Jimmy McGill (aka Saul Goodman) wore at the assisted living facility last Monday night.

Shared experience can also be shared passion. Which can be an open door for marketers who understand who’s watching what. And why.

Why Brands Should Start Swinging with Vine

Currently, 87% of U.S. marketers are using video as means of content marketing. And in the next five years, mobile video is expected to present 66% of global mobile data traffic, so it’s only natural to expand our platforms to include mobile.

So, what is Vine?

Vine is a mobile app from Twitter that allows you to create GIF-like looping videos with audio – similar to Instagram – but with video. By setting limitations of six seconds of footage and character limit of 140, Vine inspires creativity in clearly communicating a message in an ephemeral video. Since its launch in January, Vine has been topping this list of free iPhone apps in the app store.

Here’s a great post from Mashable on how to use Vine to create and share videos.

How is Vine being used now?

Both brands and celebrities have been using Vine as a platform for engagement. Recording artist Jason Derulo used Vine to promote his new single, “The Other Side,” encouraging fans to create Vines using clips of the song (provided on his site) and upload them using the hashtag #TheOtherSide. The best clips will then be loaded into a special fan video for the song.

Last month, Vine launched trending hashtags, making exploration of content even easier. Trending hashtags display to users the Vines that are rising the fastest in popularity, not just the most popular overall.

How should you use Vine?

Before you begin Vining for your brand, a clear objective for your video is key. Here are 3 important things to remember:

1)     Have only ONE message to get across. Attempting to employ multiple messages will make the video choppy, messy, and confusing to the viewer.

2)     Make sure your description is clearly stated in one concise sentence, covering what you hope viewers will get from your vine.

3)     Keep it simple and most importantly, have fun!

From a brand perspective, Vine is a great app for visual storytelling that adds value to the brand. If executed correctly, a brand’s Vine will contain the simple core message in a visual manner that will result in high consumption. Here is a great example from Gap:

What shoes do you plan to wear with The 1969 Skimmer? #gap #denimevolved

There are many ways for brands to use Vine, such as:

–          Engage followers in conversation

–          Feature brand supporters/ambassadors

–          Promote work for a client

–          Excite followers about a new product

–          Educate

–          Amuse

–          Tell the brand’s story

–          Advertise or host a contest

How can you measure Vine activity?

Concerned about analytics? Rest assured, there are already companies out there tracking stats for Vines. Simply Measured offers free Vine analytics (for Twitter accounts with up to 10,000 followers) that tracks the popularity of your Vine account.

So how do you plan on using Vine for your clients?

Online advertising predictions for 2013

As we ring in the new year, advertising trends will continue to change and progress. In 2013, online advertising is expected to be even more innovative and dominating than in past years.

  1. Mobile traffic will continue to rise. It is expected that by the end of 2013, one in three paid clicks could come from a tablet or smartphone. With this drastic increase in mobile usage, in-app advertising spend is expected to skyrocket as well.
  2. Cross-channel and cross-device advertising and measurement will explode! Where customers used to simply click on an online ad and purchase, the lines between online and offline worlds are becoming blurred as customers utilize mobile devices to conduct more product research than ever.
  3. Owned and earned media will become the rule, not the exception. Advertisers will leverage their owned media as marketing tools even more so than in years past, taking advantage of the cost efficient control that they have to reach niche audiences. In a year where word-of-mouth marketing will continue to grow, earned media will be that much more vital as the customer becomes the channel.
  4. Online advertisers are going to finally realize the true value in social media. The fact is, we no longer live in a world powered solely by direct response marketers. It is now all about building relationships with customers and gaining access to larger audiences. A new year is just going to continue to enforce the importance of utilizing social media, and even provide deeper data to support it.
  5. Online marketing will become even more targeted. Facebook has already taken the plunge moving far beyond basic demographic targeting. With custom audiences where sponsored stories or ads can be used to target a specific set of users, what’s to come next?
  6. Real-time optimization will be the norm.  Advertisers have now moved beyond the click and require insight into the brand impact of their online activity alongside their click data. We are moving towards a time in which advertisers will be able to track all of their campaigns against key metrics, and utilize online dashboards to adjust creative, frequency and more to optimize campaigns in real-time.
  7. Online display formats and units will continue to evolve. With digital infographics becoming vital in telling an advertisers’ story in 2012, the new year will only further enhance the need for online marketers to utilize different online formats to more effectively deliver their messages. Newer, larger and more customizable online units will continue to be developed in 2013, offering advertisers more innovative ways to build their brands.

Read more about 2013 trends and predictions:

http://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/online-marketing-top-trends-for-2013/

http://www.millwardbrown.com/ChangingChannels/2012/Predictions/

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/190026/2013-predictions-from-online-ad-marketing-experts.html#axzz2H1lAuGAx

Join us for #RRchat this Friday

As our society becomes more engaged in social media, we turn to digital avenues to raise awareness for everything from stating our point of views on hot topics to promoting our businesses. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have replaced traditional means of getting our message across, reaching more people than ever before.

Join us for this Friday’s #RRchat on Twitter from 1-2 p.m. to talk about how Social Media is helping to drive awareness on topics such as your health status and the upcoming election season. Check out the questions below for a sneak peak of the discussion points.

1. Facebook now lets users ID themselves as organ donors. Will you share your organ donor status for all to see?
2. Every November, men around the world grow a mustache to raise funds and awareness for men’s health issues. Do you think this impacts others’ awareness on issues like prostate cancer?
3. With elections just around the corner, politicians are already sprucing up their social media presence. How can having a social presence help raise awareness about their stance on issues?

Talk to you on Friday!

Follow #RRchat this Friday

Calling all music fans! Take a short break this Friday afternoon to chat with industry professionals about how brands are using social media to promote music.

Use the hashtag #RRchat on Twitter and join us on Friday from 3-4 Pacific Time to voice your opinions and comments. It’s fun!

1. The Tupac hologram “performed” @Coachella with @SnoopDogg and @DrDre. More than 23,000 people have followed @HologramTupac on Twitter. If you could bring a musician back from the dead, who would it be and why?

2. @MySpace trumps @Spotify’s collection of free music with 42 million songs. Do you think MySpace will make a comeback, trumping other major music sites?

3. @Coachella has created nine ways to follow them on Social Media. Which musician or festival do you think has the best brand presence on social and why?

Follow @rrpartners and remember to use the hashtag #RRchat!

See you on Friday!